Keeping Secrets by Alexa Land

Author:Alexa Land [Land, Alexa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-06-24T04:00:00+00:00

6

The next day started wonderfully. Lee and I slept in, then went downstairs to the kitchen, which Gabriel and Tracy had been kind enough to deep-clean following the buffalo incident. We cooked a delicious brunch together, and after we ate, we visited with Ren and Colt for a couple of hours while sipping coffee in the courtyard.

But in the early afternoon, my Aunt Angela arrived with her son Frankie, who was a college student and a pretty nice guy. They actually didn’t treat me like a total pariah, so that would have been great except for one thing: they brought my grandmother along.

Ren’s mother was an ice queen, no two ways about it. She’d never really welcomed me to the family in the first place, so it had been all too easy to disown me after my ex-boyfriend stole from her and I naïvely believed he was innocent. And apparently, she held a grudge like nobody’s business. When I said hello, she acted as if I hadn’t even spoken and swept past me into the hotel lobby.

Ren said, “I’m so sorry, Beck. I had hoped asking them to come to the ranch would help bring the family together.”

I got up from the table, and Lee stood up too and put his arm around my shoulders. “It’s not your fault,” I told my uncle. “I think I’m going to get out of here for a while. I really don’t feel like dealing with her scorn.”

“I don’t blame you,” Ren said. “Dante’s going to be arriving soon though, and we’re planning to talk business this afternoon. Don’t you want to be a part of that?”

Nothing ever came from those meetings. It was just a lot of time spent sitting around going, ‘I don’t understand why we can’t get this place to turn a profit’, followed by Dante throwing out a bunch of ideas that we’d already tried with no success. Besides, I’d turned down Ren’s offer to make me a co-owner of the ranch, so what was the point of me being there? I told him thanks but no thanks.

I took Lee’s hand, and as we crossed the courtyard he said, “I generally make a point of not yelling at little old ladies, but it was pretty tough to hold back just now.”

“She’s not worth getting upset over.” We’d been heading toward the fleet of golf carts, and I asked, “What time are you planning to head to the mainland?”

“Around six-thirty.”

“Are you taking the ferry?”

“Actually, Rus arranged a helicopter for me.”

I asked, “Speaking of your cousin, what’s he doing today?”

“He flew to L.A. this morning to do some recon for tonight’s meeting. He’s coming back with the helicopter though, and he won’t leave my side before, during, or after the meeting, so you have nothing to worry about there.”

“In that case, do you want to go somewhere?”

“Sure. Want to head into town?”

“Actually, I have another idea. Let me shoot a friend a quick message to see what he’s up to.” After I

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